How to enforce local storage (download) of all files?

erdoke

I'm in the process of leaving the already problematic Box storage behind, and thought that the easiest way would be to first change sync from "as needed" to "at sync time", so that the whole library would be available offline. After that the change in WebDAV settings and resetting file sync history should follow. However, Zotero doesn't seem to download any files when initiating a sync after above changes.
What am I doing wrong?

dstillman

That should work. Can you provide a Debug ID for resetting file sync history, syncing, and then trying to open a file that isn't available?

erdoke

Thanks for the reply. In the meantime, after several tries, Zotero finally started to download online-only files. It was apparent from long sync time, growing size of the “storage” folder, as well as from changing icons (empty to full blue circle) in the attachments column. But it took a few changes in settings back and forth and two app restarts. Perhaps the problem was not app, but Box related.
Next is to upload the whole thing, around 17,000 files, to pCloud. I’ll let you know here how it goes and share debug info if anything progresses unexpectedly.

erdoke

No issues so far. I had to manually add the infamous lastsync.txt to the Zotero folder on pCloud (for PaperShip), but otherwise the migration went just fine, and I'm using the system on 2 Win10 laptops and an iPad and iPhone. Box lost a customer, because I prefer to have only one cloud storage for everything that iCloud cannot take over.
Thanks again for your continued efforts and the support here.

erdoke

Perhaps it is not worth another thread, so I just put it here.
I have used Zotero on 2 Windows 10 PCs. Yesterday decided to have all the files offline on the 2nd one as well. It again took a few syncs and app restarts for Zotero to start downloading files. The bigger issue is that an error message persists. I have submitted two report with the numbers 697646758 and 1271932258. It seems that some files cannot be downloaded to the second computer, while everything seems OK on the first, no error messages, even though all settings are the same.

dstillman

File '[…].pdf' not found after processing download

Are you running any security software on this computer that might be interfering?

erdoke

No 3rd party security software, just the built-in Win10 stuff. This also should be the same as on the other computer that syncs fine. There's even less 3rd party software installed on the one with sync issues than on the other one.
Also, before changing the setting to have all files offline there had been no sync issues.

dstillman

The settings change just means there would’ve been a lot of downloads, which might surface an otherwise less-frequent problem.

Is this still WebDAV? Can you provide a Debug ID (different from a Report ID) for a sync that produces errors?

erdoke

Sure, here you go: D380403459
I just noticed a difference between the two setups. This PC with the sync issues runs Zotero v.5.0.72 while the other one without download issues runs v.5.0.73-beta1.
It's unlikely that the beta fixed precisely such an issue though.

erdoke

Since all other functionality of Zotero appeared perfectly operational, I just kept adding studies during my daily literature review, then left the computer. After returning and waking it up from sleep mode, the error message was still there following the first new sync. However, I've just recognized that the issue has resolved by itself. All I can tell is that Zotero has been running in the background even when not actively using it.
Let me know if you need an updated report.

dstillman

In this case, you have a PDF open that was modified remotely (e.g., by annotating it elsewhere). On Windows, that will prevent Zotero from downloading the updated file.

erdoke

I did (and do) have 2 PDFs open on the PC with the sync issue. The problem resolved itself while these were still open. However, those files were of course downloaded before initiating the full offline sync. I'm confident that there were no files open on the other PC. Even if there had been, it would have been 1-2 files only, not the number seen in the report.
Anyway, thanks for your kind support, problem is solved, and everything is up and running fine.